About

My name is Chris Henderson. I am an associate teaching professor in sport media and communication at the University of Rhode Island.

My research analyzes the social, geographic, and historical conditions in which groups with limited access to institutional power utilize sports fandom to enact change. I study how fans communicate, form community, claim space and take part in activism. My current project is an oral history of U.S. women’s professional soccer fandom from 1999-2026, as told through the voices of fans and followers of the sport.

I have taught classes on the cultural study of sport, sport history, sport and gender, sport and race and sport media. I emphasize community and experiential learning in the classroom by empowering students to take an active role in the selecting the subjects we study and how we study them.

Prior to working in higher education, I worked as a writer, photographer and site-specific public artist based in New York City collaborating on programs that negotiated and contested the borders between art, society, and politics. Work included interactive performative screenings, the formation of site-specific residency for visual and performing artists in the basement of a former hospital and long-form journalism on soccer.

Please get in touch.

Academic profile: University of Rhode Island

Blue Sky: @cwritefootball

Email: cwhenderson@uri.edu